Ben’s back!
> Stokes acquitted of affray, back on Test squad
BEN STOKES is in line to play in the third Test against India after being recalled to the squad following his acquittal on a charge of affray yesterday.
The 27-year-old New Zealand-born all-rounder, who took six wickets in the first Test victory over India but missed the second Test due to the trial, was found not guilty by a unanimous decision by the jury in Bristol after less than three hours of deliberations.
“Ben Stokes will now join the England squad for the 3rd Test against India, which starts at Trent Bridge on Saturday,” read the statement from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
The 27-year-old – whose co-defendant Ryan Ali was also found unanimously not guilty – had been charged following a brawl hours after England played the West Indies in a one-day international in Bristol, southwest England, in September last year.
His wife, Clare, cried when the not guilty verdicts were returned while Stokes closed his eyes with relief and then looked up.
Stokes shook hands with Ali on leaving the dock at the end of the trial that lasted seven days.
Whilst Stokes – whose travails are not over as he faces a disciplinary hearing by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) – stayed inside a smiling Ali restricted himself to telling the BBC he was “relieved it was all over”.
At the start of the trial the prosecution tried to amend the indictment and charge Stokes with two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm but this was rejected by the judge.
And half way through the trial Stokes’s legal team attempted to have the case against him dropped but this was also refused by the judge.
Stokes said in his testimony last Friday he had a “significant memory blackout” but he was “absolutely not” an angry man who had lost all control. – AFP